The Dance

Deni D

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.
Staff member
I cried tonight, just a little, but for me that’s a big thing. I think it’s good when you can cry. I learned from a very young age that “big girls don’t cry”. On fakebook there were two guys singing on their headsets, it was “The Dance” by Garth Brooks.
“And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd have to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn't I the king”

The song is about a romance but when I heard the words “Holding you I held everything” I had a flashback to when my son was a colicky infant and all of those nights walking and dancing around feeling half dead with him in my arms because as soon as I sat down he would start to cry. I remember being so exhausted but saying to myself (because my friend’s mom had told me) that these times were going to pass fast and I would remember them with fondness one day. And then that led to other memories, the loving, funny, nice memories.

I was a good mother, I know I was. I was so invested in my son, and paid attention to walking that line from being too much in his life and letting him bloom the way he needed and wanted to. I loved him so much, with all of his quirks and emotions. I tried to guide him into adulthood, I did the best I could. I can’t think of anything I could have done differently other than to have gotten him someone like a mentor, a good male influence in his life.

I’m holding steady, not rescuing him. Only responding to his emails by telling him to get an antipsychotic added to his medication, take the medication, and stop the drinking and drugging.

Today he ripped me a new one, again, with a string of vitriol I would never have even expected to see in writing from him. Two of his rapid fire emails were:
“Oh and by the way, kicking me out in the street to freeze and starve, dragging me through the dirt in court, effective court ordering contact be limited to :censored2:ING EMAIL, and perpetually gossiping about me like a bored hormonal 14-year-old cross-bread with an absentee mother IS EFFECTIVELY DISOWNING ME, no matter how much wannabe psychologist rhetoric you use as a conversation piece. Get real already D{my name}. I'm literally rolling my eyes.”
“As far as anyone who you pow-wow with and talk all this :censored2: about me, maybe they'll keep you company when your health inevitably deteriorates and I'm off living my life with plenty more laps left in my race on this world. You don't concern me, D{my name}, you're only hurting yourself at this point.“

He is delusional. He worked very hard to get himself removed from my house. And I made arrangements for him to not be “in the street to freeze and starve” so he would have the opportunity to go to the hospital to get help, which he did, for much too short of a time. During this email exchange I got eight emails trashing me where I responded twice telling him he needed medical help and other people are concerned for him. He is falling apart more and more from the reports from people who are coming to me to tell me, concerned people, not people gossiping about him.

Treatment for mental health in the US has progressed with better medications and better knowledge of psychological treatments. But we have taken a step back into the Stone Age with the closing of the mental health facilities and screwed up laws that even if you can get someone admitted against their will it’s for 3 days at most. Medications for mental illness are still a crapshoot, time is needed to see if the medication(s) are right. And all of the information for these medications warn people to watch for side effects worse than the illness itself. Also in a lot of cases the medication takes up to a month to tell if it’s even effective. So why the hell does a maximum 3 day hold make any :censored2:ing sense, sorry for censure, I figure it’s there, couldn’t help it. Unless someone is aware of the subtleties of their illness or is suffering more than the people around them they are not going to seek help. If they are delusional it takes getting to the point where they are totally psychotic and drooling on themselves to force help on them. Otherwise they are considered okay, as long as they say they so. We have a homeless crises in the US (since the mental hospitals closed in the freaking 1980’s) we’ve had an opioid crises in the US for years now, and our most recent crises is the mass shootings of people. My contention is that these thing things have everything to do with the lack of mental health for people who need it and don’t know it.

Even with the right medication my son would have his challenges. He’d be self-centered, pretty much like his dad, but he would have a conscience. He is scattered, maybe to the point where he won’t be able to hold down a fulltime job, but he can function to an extent. Right now, with the lack of medication, and who knows what with drinking and drugging he’s lucky he has a roof over his head, for now.
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
So sorry to hear your story. The memories of your son are very sweet.....as are mine.

I completely agree with you about the state of our country with regard to mental health and yes that is the root of most of the countries problems.

My son is not bipolar but I do know that many people are and can live a normal life. I do hope that your son finds his way but I think what he is doing may even be somewhat typical of someone his age struggling with this illness until they find their footing?

My advice is to see a therapist that specializes in mental health and addiction to help you keep your firm boundaries. It does sound like you are very strong and know what you need to do. I hope you have people in your life that support you.

Hugs.
 

Deni D

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.
Staff member
My son is not bipolar but I do know that many people are and can live a normal life. I do hope that your son finds his way but I think what he is doing may even be somewhat typical of someone his age struggling with this illness until they find their footing?
Thanks RN, yes it seems with my son it's always been somewhat typical behaviors but multiplied by 10. I'm sure hoping he can find his footing but as the years go by I know his chances are less and less.

My advice is to see a therapist that specializes in mental health and addiction to help you keep your firm boundaries. It does sound like you are very strong and know what you need to do. I hope you have people in your life that support you.
I've had this advice on this forum before, it does sound like good idea. Right now I have a buffer between myself and my son, he can only contact me via email and has to call my significant other if he wants to get a message to me that way or wants something. I do have people in my life who support me, but they don't understand the mental health side of his issues. Right now I'm thinking that's a good thing, because regardless he's in charge of his life. In the past I've rescued him way too much thinking he had to be rescued excusing his bad behavior because of the mental illness.
 

Littleboylost

Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
Oh my heart goes out to you. Why they will consume the drugs that harm them and not take the drugs to help then is a mystery I will never be able go unravel. My niece is a bipolar who self medicates with drugs and alcohol. She is not associated with family any more bar her mother. Too destructive.
 

SeekingStrength

Well-Known Member
Hugs Deni,

When reading the email you received from your son, I had to take a break and walk around a bit. It sounds exactly like the sort of emails my Difficult Child sent after his dad and I stopped giving him any money.

Eventually, I moved them to an email folder without reading them.....where they remain unread years later.

My son, almost 37 years old, was a joy as a child.

Please know that I share your pain. Glad you are with us because the support is amazing.

SS
 

Deni D

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.
Staff member
Thanks LBL and SS.
LBL And with all of the education my son has received for his condition throughout his life. I feel like it went up in smoke with the first joint of synthetic marajuana.

SS I'm sorry my post email content did that to you.

A quote by Sam3 on another post:
“But I think there is power in letting our adult children know, without catastrophizing, that we have wrapped our heads around the possibility that their futures might involve jail, homelessness, and living off the dole, if they don’t beat their addictions and treat their illnesses.
It takes away the X factor: their belief that they would get another bonus life because “my parents would be too horrified to let that happen to me.”
So it becomes their informed choice whether they want to see a therapist, meet with a job counselor, take medications — or not.”

I'm going to print this out and put it on my refrigerator. I've been accused of "catastrophyizing" often no matter what ridiculous direction I've tried to guide my son from going in. But the thing is I've done it with too much emotion, hence the catastrophyizing. My goal right now is to calm myself down to actually feel the above. That way when my son manages to get around my force field, like he did today when he called from a number I thought was from a business I deal with, I can calmly speak to him as if the ball is in his court and his choices have nothing to do with me.

I feel bad that I haven't been able to respond to anyone else's posts in this forum. I've tried but 1) I'm not nearly as eloquent as the posters here 2) I'm in so far over my head I feel like the Avatar I just changed my picture to. I don't trust my judgement.

Thanks so much to everyone for all of the support here.
 

Sam3

Active Member
Thank you for reminding me. My ideal self in this situation is not overly fearful, is commonsensical, assumes that he wants to break out of his skull sized hell — and lets him know I can help when he’s ready but am always rooting for him, regardless.

I’m not always there but it feels like the place to be. Accepting, hopeful and divested of false responsibility
 

magnolia26

... the sound of an iron trap door closing ...
I'm sorry to hear all of this. If its' any consolation, I believe my daughter has been on the right medications, received the right treatment, received the right boundaries, and it doesn't change that she has tried to completely destroy me. In my case, my daughter has proven to me that her inclination to deny all of the tools she has ever been given in therapy and at home is stronger than her inclination to have a relationship with me that isn't detrimental to my emotional, physical, and financial well-being. I am sending love and light and strength to you and want to tell you that you are doing the right things by maintaining this strict boundary. Despite mental illness and the challenges our children face, they are making a choice in how they treat us.
 
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